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by Foxbear
Summary: Sherlock gave his word that he would protect all three to the best of his ability. He can't quite understand why Mary and John object to a few scientific experiments to further that goal.


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John Watson woke to a rather clumsy but entirely affectionate kiss from his wife and tried to say something suitably romantic in reply. He was fairly certain that it came out as a series of grunts but Mary seemed pleased by the effort and curled up against him. He yawned and stretched before swinging his legs over the side of the bed and sliding his feet into the slippers they found there.

"You are an incredibly sexy man you know that?" Mary muttered.

John cast a wry smile over his shoulder as he shuffled towards the crib and the source of the sound that had presumably woken his wife. He groped in the bundle of velvet soft blankets and frowned as he failed to come up with the expected warm baby that should have been there. A brief stab of panic lanced through him before turning to hazy irritation when he found the cold metal of a broth ladle instead. Deciding it was probably not the best idea to wake Mary from her first full night's sleep in months he took the ladle up and shuffled out of the room. He heard the murmuring and smelled the familiar tang of warm formula before he reached the kitchen.

"Of course that logical fallacy is just as subject to its opposite." Sherlock's voice droned on in the deadly earnest tones he only used when he was speaking to his mental equals.

John paused to glare at the man, trying to decide if it was worth it to scold him for the growing list of transgressions. Then John huffed and shuffled over to put the ladle back in its drawer. He flicked the kettle on to make tea and leaned against the wall.

"I don't remember giving you a key to our flat," John pointed out in a pause in Sherlock's monolog.

Sherlock glanced up from the baby's face and gave John an irritated glare. "You didn't. But I've decided to over look the slight for your offspring's sake." He replied shortly before resuming the baby's lesson, his face easing back into the not-smile that he always wore when contemplating John's little one.

Granted the fact that the baby seemed far more interested in the bottle of formula that Sherlock was holding up to the tiny mouth stole any real dander out of John. He couldn't help smiling at the way his friend was doting on the child, unholy hour and questionable entrance aside. The kettle began to bubble quietly and John unplugged it before the whistling woke Mary. He made two cups and grabbed one of the burp rags off of the pile before sitting down at the kitchen table.

"Ah, time for the unfortunate biological results," Sherlock muttered in annoyance before handing over the baby with delicate precision to John who had already placed the towel on his shoulder.

John grinned and positioned the baby before carefully tapping the cotton covered back. "Sure, it's back to the parents for the real work."

"My goal here is simply to enrich the child's mental capacity," Sherlock stated with a huff, sitting down in front of his cup of tea. "You and Mary are more than capable of tending to all of the mundane needs of life."

John thought about pointing out that a baby had little chance of being enriched by complex Greek logic philosophy when even colors were a bit beyond comprehension but held his tongue. He and Mary and discussed this and decided that discouraging any interaction was a bad idea.

"So how is the case going?" John asked. "The one with the woman?" His still sleep fogged mind rather desperately hoped that there was a woman involved in the current case. He couldn't quite remember.

"Oh Lestrade is being obstructive again," Sherlock leaned back and began a quiet rant on the inefficiencies of the police interspaced with facts and cutting observations.

John burped the baby and cleaned up the resulting mess and then determined that a new nappy was in order. He squatted on the floor rather than going to the changing table and preformed the necessary action. Sherlock helpfully handed him a fresh set of cotton baby pajamas. John suspected that Sherlock frequently snuck new baby things into the drawers. At least that was the only explanation he had come up with for the fact that they seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of patterned cottons for the little one. Once any danger of exposure to unnecessary bodily fluids was passed Sherlock snatched up his little pupil again and resumed his lecture, pacing back and forth across the kitchen. John smiled and shook his head.

After a bit Mary found her way downstairs. She smiled at John and looked not a bit surprised to find Sherlock explaining some facet of Euclidian maths to her baby. She got herself a cup and joined John at the table, pausing to kiss his head before sitting down beside him.

"So when are you planning on having another?" Sherlock suddenly addressed the two adults.

John blinked owlishly at him in confusion and Mary took a sip of her tea. "When I'm done with this one I think." She murmured.

"Another child," Sherlock clarified with a withering glare.

Mary exchanged a bemused look with John as the caffeine seeped into her veins. "I haven't really thought about it." She said.

"Why?" John asked with a grin. "Are you that keen of having me reproduce more that once?"

"Of course," Sherlock replied simply. "I will need a larger sample size if the results are going to be at all meaningful."

Mary choked a bit on her tea before starting up and not quite snatching the baby out of Sherlock's arms.

"Allright," the woman said, "time for mamma and baby to have some alone time." She swept out of the room with her nightgown swishing.

Sherlock stared after her with a bemused expression on his face and then turned to face the daggers John was glaring at him as the doctor tasted the formula mixture in the near empty bottle.

"What?" Sherlock demanded in confusion.


End file.
